Webinars

Natural Areas Association Webinar Series

Our webinar series is a part of our continuing commitment to bring the latest and most relevant information to our members. Click "Register" under the webinar you want to attend.
Want to watch archives of our past webinars? Scroll down and click on View Archive by the webinar you want to see.

REGISTER NOW

2018 NAA Pollinator Management Webinar Series

The 2018 Pollinator Management webinar series will be seven webinars presented every other Wednesday in March and April, starting with March 7. This series serves as a companion initiative to an NAA Synthesis Paper on Pollinator Health and Resilience in Natural Areas Management that will come out in 2018. NAA is proud to present this series with support from the U.S. Forest Service.
Some of the information contained in this series was originally shared in the Pollinator Symposium at the 2017 Natural Areas Conference.

Pollinators play a critical role in supporting natural areas. As managers of natural systems, we are mindful, cautious, and curious about how to proceed with management actions that provide the best results for pollinators. The 2017 Natural Areas Conference Pollinator Symposium showcased new research filling gaps in our understanding of grazing and alpine forest management, as well as summaries of Best Management Practices for restoring prairies, managing honey bees, supporting monarch butterflies, and managing rangelands. Highlights and key messages from the symposium are presented in this summary webinar, setting the state for in-depth presentations offered by the presenters throughout the spring.

Food resource overlap between managed honey bees and wild bees presents potential challenges in management scenarios where natural forage is sought for honey bees. Natural areas managers seek guidance in decision making, ideally based on evidence from current research. Pollinator Partnership has aggregated and reviewed research on bee competition with the goal of presenting guidance and best management practices. This webinar reviews the body of research on bee competition in detail, examining methods, experimental techniques, and rigor, and presents guidance based on these findings. Only limited research has been conducted on bee competition, and it presents mixed findings; however, some consistent trends in growth limitation and reduced colony reproduction in bumble bees in the presence of honey bees provides context for management decisions.

Land managers have increased efforts to better understand how natural areas can be managed to enhance native pollinators; however, pollinator management must be balanced with other uses such as livestock grazing and wildlife habitat. Yet little attention has focused on how grazing mammals, especially native ungulates, interact with pollinators. As part of a larger, collaborative project evaluating ungulate grazing management and riparian restoration at the Starkey Experimental Forest and Range (Starkey) in northeast Oregon, we examined how large mammals may influence native bees through dietary overlap. We sampled native bees and floral resources from spring to fall in 2014-2016 along a 14-km reach of Meadow Creek within Starkey to 1) document which flowering species are most commonly visited by native bees, and 2) quantify how herbivory by deer and elk influences flowering plant communities. Half of the 12 sampling sites were excluded from grazing. We recorded >150 species of flowering forbs and shrubs and >900 bee visitors of >80 species. Flowering stems were generally more abundant in ungrazed vs. grazed sites; however, patterns were highly variable in time and space and across species. For some plants frequently visited by bees and also in elk diets (e.g., Potentilla gracilis), we found higher flower abundance in ungrazed sites. We discuss management implications relative to seasonal habitat use and dietary preferences of ungulates and variation in bee phenology, and conclude with guidance about timing and intensity of ungulate grazing when managing for multiple conservation objectives in grazed sites, especially in riparian areas.

Talk 2:Thomas Kaye, Executive Director and Senior Ecologist at the Institute for Applied Ecology: Partnering with Pollinators: Prairie Restoration to Support Diverse Pollinating Insects
Insects are important pollinators of many plants, from agriculturally significant species to plants in natural areas. Pollinators and plants depend on one another for completion of their life cycles and together they serve significant ecosystem functions. Restoration and management of prairie habitat in the Pacific Northwest provides an opportunity to improve conditions for many pollinators, and land managers can provide better conditions for these insects by providing for basic life-history needs of major insect groups, especially through providing a diversity of plants that provide nectar and pollen as food, as well as nesting habitats. Research on habitat restoration in this region at multiple upland and wetland sites shows that flowering plant diversity can be increased by combinations of management treatments that include seeding with native plants after burning and herbicide applications. Although these treatments can improve conditions for food plants of insects, they can also harm or kill them, so it may be important to apply such treatments over portions of managed landscapes rather than all at once across managed sites. Strategies that combine improvements in plant diversity and overlapping bloom periods throughout the growing season with habitat features such as bare ground, availability of dead hollow or pithy stems of woody plants, and leafy materials, can optimize food and nesting conditions for multiple species of pollinating insects while achieving many other restoration goals.

With over 1,380 species, bats represent 20-25% of mammalian diversity and are second only to rodents. The United States only has 47 species (3%) of which 43 species eat insects, 3 are pollinators (Leptonycteris nivalis – Endangered; L. yerbabuenae – Endangered, proposed for Delisting; Choeronycteris mexicana – Not Listed), and 1 eats fruit in the Florida Keys (Artibeus jamaicensis – Not Listed). Antrozous pallidus is an insect-eating bat that has also been documented as a pollinator in the arid southwest. While insect-eating bats save US farmers over 3.1 billion dollars annually, as US pollinating bats are only found in the arid southern portions of Arizona, California, New Mexico, and Texas it should be no surprise these species provide few services to US farmers. However, they are important to maintaining iconic arid ecosystems and in Mexico the two Leptonycteris species pollinate agave which is used for Tequila production.
The rapid expansion of wind and solar farms as “green energy” in the United States and around the world has raised concerns for unintended negative impacts to biodiversity. In the US, scientists estimate that hundreds of thousands of bats – predominantly migratory tree bats - are killed annually at wind farms. As research continues, evidence is growing that other insect-eating bats are killed to a much greater degree when wind farms are located “near” major concentrations of bats in cave roosts. There are very few public records of pollinating bats being killed at turbines which may be an artifact that there has been limited publicly available bats and wind research conducted in the arid southwest. Research on bats and solar farms is even more limited. Faced with a paucity of information of both wind and solar farms impacts to pollinating bats, wind industry, land managers, and conservationists are encouraged to take a precautionary approach to the siting and operations of these facilities and proactively work with credible researchers to resolve critical questions. This research should not be done in a vacuum and credible results should be implemented in a timely manner or it will have very limited value.

The federal strategy to promote the health of pollinators and the associated research action plan directs federal agencies to collaborate with multiple stakeholders to ensure pollinators have the right native plant communities for food and shelter. The strategy recognizes the importance that utility rights-of-way can play
when considering the extent of this landscape type; their connectivity and intersection with multiple habitats; and the desirable management regimes that maintain a forb-dominated early successional landscape. With our non-profit, university and other utility partners, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) is on the forefront of implementing pollinator habitat use research within electric transmission rights-of-way in the Western United States. This presentation will emphasize how the practical application of Integrated Vegetation Management (IVM) to support safe and reliable energy transmission goals also supports the federal strategy’s habitat, research and partnership goals. This information along with an overview of current and planned pollinator research that PG&E and its partners are involved with will help answer the action plan research questions that are being asked of right-of-way managers. Specifically: What are the best practices for supporting pollinators on rights-of-way? What plants are suitable for both pollination and management constraints? How do pesticide/herbicide applications affect pollinators and their habitats? Study results indicate increased pollinator use on sections of right-of-way managed through IVM. Knowledge gained by PG&E and its partners will further the utility industry’s ability to implement pollinator-friendly land management techniques and to create connected habitat corridors while also implementing best practices that support safe energy transmission.

Rangelands account for a substantial portion of the Western US. These lands are essential for the conservation of pollinators of all types. The Xerces Society is working with the U.S. Forest Service to develop meaningful and implementable Best Management Practices (BMPs) for pollinators on western rangelands with a major focus on habitat protection, management, enhancement and restoration. These guidelines will address the needs of native bees and butterflies, including the monarch butterfly. The Xerces Society is using a process that we developed working with the Federal Highway Administration on publications that provide guidance on the science and practice of roadside management for pollinators. The steps include 1) a thorough literature review of all peer-reviewed literature and technical materials on the topic of rangeland management and restoration to enhance pollinator habitat value, 2) interviews with practitioners and others that understand the science, practice, and economic issues related to pollinator conservation and habitat management in rangeland systems. All of the information is summarized into clear, concise guidance that can be used by agency staff for “real world” field application. We are specifically looking at how this body of information can be applied in western North American rangeland settings while considering feasibility relative to existing practices, guidelines, and budgetary limits. These BMPs provide a roadmap for how we can better manage rangeland pollinators and a process for successful BMP creation.

Dirk Netz, USDA Forest Service botanist with the Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest.

Sarah Kulpa, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Restoration Ecologist/Botanist with the USFWS Reno Office

This webinar will provide a brief introduction to the National Seed Strategy for Rehabilitation and Restoration through real life, “hands-on” examples of implementation. The 350+-member Plant Conservation Alliance (PCA) released the National Seed Strategy in 2015. It represents an unprecedented partnership effort of national, regional and local public and private collaborators.

Three speakers from three different federal agencies will discuss implementation opportunities and challenges from a national, regional and local perspective. Examples will relate to strategy goals (producing and providing needed seed, conducting research, expanding tools for land managers and communications).
Although stories will primarily focus on work being done in the Great Basin, concepts and practices will be of interest to land managers, conservationists and botanists nationwide.

During this hour-long webinar, land managers can expect to learn:
• Why customers like Oregon Metro and Clean Water Services chose to implement TerraTrak and the resulting workflow improvements they’ve experienced
• A step-by-step demo of the site management module
• How organizations across the country can free up staff time for genuine stewardship by adopting this enterprise-level conservation management platform.

Title: New Online Resources for Revegetation PractitionersTime: June 7, Noon ETSpeaker: Matt Horning, Plant Geneticist, USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Region
In 2007 the US Forest Service (USFS) and Federal Highways Administration (FHWA) published the report “Roadside revegetation: an integrated approach to establishing native plants” as a technical resource for project designers and revegetation specialists aimed to increase the success of FHWA roadside revegetation projects in the Pacific Northwest USA. Importantly, the integrated approach and information in this report is applicable on highly disturbed sites outside the context of roadsides and is broadly relevant to a diverse array of revegetation projects. Currently this document is being updated to include pollinator-specific guidance and new content including an expanded scope to include all of the US. The new report will be hosted on the website nativerevegtation.org along with additional information including a resource library and other training aides.
In addition to this document, the USFS and FWHA along with other partners are producing a nationwide online ecoregional workhorse and pollinator-friendly plant list utility. This utility should aid practitioners in selecting and sourcing appropriate native plant materials for various revegetation objectives including pollinator conservation through habitat creation. This presentation will highlight this integrated approach to revegetation and describe these resources for restoration practitioners.

Title: Residual Fire Regimes and Their Value in a Post-suppression Management EraTime: March 29, Noon ET (rescheduled date)Speakers: Tom Saladyga, Asst. Professor of Geography, Concord University; Alecea Standlee, Asst. Professor of Sociology, Concord University
In regions where forests have developed in response to decades of fire suppression or exclusion, there often persist isolated, residual fire regimes with characteristics similar to those inferred from pre-suppression era fire histories. In this webinar, we will discuss how these surviving fire regimes and the people who live among them can help inform current and future forest management and restoration objectives. Our discussion will focus generally on the Central Hardwood Forest Region and, specifically, the Pennsylvania Anthracite Region where fire activity has continued uninterrupted into the 21st century. This region provides us an opportunity to discuss how multiple sources of information, including fire-scarred trees, observational fire records, socioeconomic data, and a “fire knowledge” survey can be used to guide management decisions and ensure resilient forest landscapes.

Title: Bringing Back the Pollinators: Conservation in the Age of Climate ChangeTime: February 22, Noon ETSpeaker: Scott Hoffman Black, Executive Director, Xerces Society
Pollinators are an indispensable part of a healthy environment and a secure food supply. Despite their recognized importance, until recent years, little attention was given to the conservation of pollinators and now some are in decline. Many species of bumble bees are at risk of extinction, and monarch butterfly populations have declined by more than 80 percent. Loss of habitat, widespread use of pesticides, and disease and parasites are among the leading causes of these declines. Although we do not know the full role of climate change in pollinator declines, data suggests climate resilient habitats will help conserve pollinators.
Many practitioners and land management agencies are interested in restoring and managing habitat for pollinators. Understanding how climate change will impact both the pollinators and their habitats is vital to providing resilient habitats for long-term conservation. Scott will discuss the research on climate change and pollinators and how land managers can conserve, manage and restore habitats with climate change in mind.

Title: Resident and User Support for Urban Natural Areas Restoration PracticesTime: November 10, Noon ETSpeaker: Paul H. Gobster, Research Landscape Architect, USDA Forest Service
Public support is important to the success of natural areas restoration programs, and it can be especially critical in urban settings where stakeholders recreate in or reside near natural areas but may lack familiarity with practices for managing ecological processes. Surveys of on-site recreationists and nearby residents of 11 Chicago metropolitan natural areas were used to assess support for eight different practices commonly used in oak woodland restoration. On-site users and nearby residents who believed that a restoration practice was being used at the site they visited and/or lived near were much more likely to support the use of that practice than those who did not believe or did not know whether it was being used. Beyond these findings, results also suggest that support should be viewed as a multidimensional concept that involves perceptual, demographic, and structural components which often differ for different practices. Managers can use the information provided here to increase their understanding of the relative nature of restoration support and devise holistic social-ecological strategies to achieve restoration success.

Title: Modern climate change and wildlife populations: Understanding vulnerability and conservation in a novel futureTime: August 23, Noon ETSpeaker: Benjamin Zuckerberg, Assistant Professor, Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology, University of Wisconsin, Madison
The evidence that wildlife populations are responding to modern climate change is now overwhelming. There is strong scientific consensus that environmental tipping points are being crossed, and many species are adapting (or failing to adapt) to these novel climate conditions. This talk will focus on how climate and land use change drive changes at the level of individuals and populations, and what are the implications for the management and conservation of wildlife under an increasingly uncertain future.

Title: Don’t Speculate, Calculate! The New Long-term Stewardship CalculatorTime: June 28, Noon ETSpeaker: Angela Sturdevant, The Nature Conservancy, Indiana Field Office; Coda Global Fellow with TNC’s Mitigation Learning Network
We all know that costs associated with long-term stewardship are inherently difficult to predict and often underestimated. To help tackle this problem, The Nature Conservancy convened national experts to develop a calculator that estimates stewardship costs and the amount that should be set aside to provide a secure source of future funding. We developed several products, including a spreadsheet for calculating stewardship costs, an accompanying handbook and quick reference guide, and a web-based portal for these resources. This accessible tool helps consolidate and highlight common expenses to improve the ease and accuracy of calculating costs. The calculator has been designed to be used for both conservation easements and fee land, and is available for free here. The presentation will include a step-by-step demonstration of the calculator and an overview of endowment management concepts.